<p>How do you deal with a child that gets rejected from her top school picks?</p>
<p>While not dismissing their disappointment, try not to make it into more of a big deal than you can help. Offer condolences, but talk up the choices they do have.</p>
<p>If you need to vent about the unfairness of it all or the shortsighted nitwits in admissions, come here. That’s what we’re for. :)</p>
<p>This happened to us last year. Let them know that it isn’t the end of the world, tell them that things will look up and emphasize the positive, being the schools they were admitted to. It was a rough week for my daughter one year ago when she was rejected from more than one of her top choices. Ultimately I wasn’t sorry about all of the rejections, everyone has to learn how not to get something that they really want and there is always another way to achieve their goals.</p>
<p>Remind her that her safety schools love her.</p>
<p>We will be seeing this next yr…</p>
<p>I think the most helpful thing is to reassure our kids that their value is NOT determined by a schools acceptance/rejection…
they are not being rejected as a person/human being…
and while its hard to not have a certain college breaking down your front door to offer you admissions…it doesn’t define our kids</p>
<p>I dont want my sons to see their value by another’s opinion or decision…</p>
<p>Good food for thought. Thanks for posting the question.</p>
<p>It happens, hopefully you’ve chosen safety and match schools so that your child still has choices. My oldest got rejected from four schools, but he’s very happy where he ended up. Often this is the first real rejection our kids have had, certainly about something that is very important to them, it’s not easy and they have every right to feel sorry for themselves at least for a while. Learning to pick yourself up and move on is an important skill. My sons’ chess teacher used to say you learn more from failing than winning all the time. It’s worth remembering.</p>
<p>Sometimes it can help if you’re a bit pro-active before it can happen.</p>
<p>When my kids were going thru the app process, we assured them that whatever happened, things would work out because they had also applied to match and safety schools which they liked. We talked about how these top schools reject all kinds of super kids and that a rejection isn’t a reflection on any student, but just a consequence of having too few available spots. </p>
<p>It also helps if your child has applied to a few “rolling admissions” schools that have quick acceptances (and maybe some nice merit $$). Having a few acceptances in one’s pocket can take the sting out of rejections. :)</p>
<p>Always have a couple of financial safeties!!!</p>
<p>OK I am still bitter about my DDs rejections but I don’t share that with her.</p>
<p>She was WLed at her top choice and decided to stay on it. The day after graduation the notice came saying “thanks but no thanks” When I told my H he asked…“is she taking it as hard as you are?” She wasn’t so I took my cue from her.</p>
<p>Ignore the rejection, or just say it’s okay and that there are still other choices. Just don’t be like my parents.</p>
<p>When I was rejected at all the ivies I applied to (I did four), my parents kept rubbing it in my face, even after I told them to let it go. They were like “you shouldn’t have graduated early”, “you must have sucked at the interviews”, “you should have let us seen your essay”, and “if you stayed one more year, you would have gotten in” right until I went to college.</p>
<p>I mean, I got into some damn good colleges, and got a lot of money from my safeties. And I was offered GT at Cornell. I didn’t need their yabbering, especially when Harvard and Yale were their choices and when they didn’t help me with the application process.</p>
<p>Historymom brings up a good point: often the kids are better prepared for the rejection than their parents. So unless you see your child absolutely heartbroken, no need to make a big deal out of the bad news. </p>
<p>BTW, a friend of mine’s daughter is wait-listed at Yale. She was disappointed, but simply put all her energy into RD aps, and in some way has moved on. He’s still dwelling on it, quietly, privately, over a drink late at night :)</p>
<p>You tell the kid you love him/her, and that you are absolutely, confidently certain that he/she is going to be successful and happy wherever she/he goes to school. The decision is that school’s loss.</p>
<p>Do some ground work ahead of time. Tell her months/weeks out what a great job she did compiling a list of all kinds of schools that she’d love to attend and so, regardless of what happens at Big Name U, you know that she’ll be happy wherever she decides. Remind her that she’ll bloom wherever she’s planted and have some concrete reasons why some of the other choices are great options (size, location, programs, whatever).</p>
<p>And make sure she has that diversified list and hasn’t put all her eggs in one basket!</p>
<p>Mine was stressed before the decision came out from his first-choice college (applied ED). I overheard him talking about it with our doctor, who gave him words of wisdom: “So, what’s the worst that can happen? If you get rejected by Harvey Mudd, worst case scenario, you can go to [the local flagship] for free and get treated like royalty!”</p>
<p>I built on that point with him later, because the state flagship really does want students of his caliber and really does treat them very, very well. I used the phrase “treated like a god among mere mortals” and other imagery that was vivid and obviously over-the-top. </p>
<p>I also found a faculty member at the safety who I knew would connect with him on a personality level. I was preparing to introduce them and let the full-court press begin… and then the acceptance letter came from Mudd.</p>
<p>I know the approach worked to an extent, because I heard him repeating the “god among mere mortals” line to some friends in a mostly jocular manner. He might even have looked back wistfully on that option once or twice during the first semester of Mudd’s Core Curriculum from Hell. ;)</p>
<p>Best of luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>I agree about laying the groundwork ahead of time. There are many very smart high school kids who have no idea of the extremely low acceptance rate of the top schools. They have no idea how many Vals and Sals the Ivies reject. Mention this kind of thing early on. The top of the class kids spend their lives being told “oh you’re so smart, you should go to Harvard” and the like. The people saying that don’t have a clue of the odds, even for the most brilliant. Make sure the kids are aware of the odds.</p>
<p>Here’s another idea: Have “fun” safety if you can afford it…for example, if your child has always loved Florida, have her apply to a safety in Florida…it can be an academic safety without being boring.</p>
<p>I’ll admit that I didn’t have to live the experience, but…</p>
<p>I think it helps to know that it’s all about building a class. I’ve used this analogy hundreds of times, but applying to college is like trying out for a high school musical. It’s all about the cast. No director picks the 20 most talented musicians/actors/singers who audition and starts rehearsals. Instead, they cast for specific roles. They need so many girls and so many guys. A girl with a soprano voice is going to be competing with lots of talented kids for a lead. The boy who sings bass will have less competition. If the play is “Guys and Dolls” and he’s a bit plump and can play Nicely Nicely (who sings "Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat), he’s probably not going to be competing against more than a couple of people for the role–and may not have any competition. (And, if you are the girl applying for a spot at a co-ed LAC, you’re in a position not unlike the sopranos auditioning who see less talented guys get better roles.) </p>
<p>Some kids will get picked because the director has worked with them before–and knows they can do the job. Some will get picked because they “fit.” If all the boys in the chorus line are short, a director may not pick the tallest girl–even though she’s a better dancer than the shorter girl who is chosen. </p>
<p>The point is that NO top college claims that it chooses the best students among the applicants or the most deserving applicants. Instead, they fill roles. So, if Stacy or Kevin gets in and you don’t, it doesn’t mean that Dream U though that they were more deserving–it just means they could play a different role than you can. The role might be an athlete, an URM, a girl who wants to major in engineering, a legacy, a kid from a less advantaged background, or something you’ll never figure out. </p>
<p>I think that knowing how the system works–that it really isn’t about judging the relative worth of two different applicants–helps kids deal with the rejections. If you’re a white or Asian middle class kid with two college-educated parents who comes from an affluent suburb of a major American city, reality is that the “admit” rate for the role you are competing for is probably roughly half of the published overall rate. You’re the soprano trying for the lead.</p>
<p>2 of my kids never got over their rejections from their first choice colleges. One transferred to hers and the other attends his as a grad student. I would throw in that there are second chances.</p>
<p>I like the theater production analogy. </p>
<p>I told mine that it’s like a game of poker. You are dealt a hand of cards (your strengths) and you play that hand to the best of your ability. Sometimes you win. Sometimes someone else has a better hand or a better played hand. The world keeps turning either way. </p>
<p>As to the day of rejection – BE PREPARED. Prep the kid ahead of time by saying “OK, you get to cry for 45 minutes or one box of Kleenex, which ever comes first. Then we will go get ice cream and do some therapy (go karts, shopping, puppy holding – whatever gets a guaranteed grin). After that, we turn the page on this day and start the next adventure.”</p>
<p>Very pragmatic. Remember no one died here. No one lost a limb or a house or a baby. If you are very pragmatic, then your kid has an excellent behavior model to follow. </p>
<p>Waiting until the rejection arrives to start the modeled behavior is waiting too late. Tell the kid ahead of time how a rejection will be handled and they will be ready.</p>
<p>my dd was accepted to all her schools (not super top schools, though, that was not what she was interested in) but she missed the scholarship cutoff by one point at her top school. she was bummed, but i think she is ok with it. we are still working the scholarship angle, but if it doesn’t work out, she will be ok. she is ok now. she has 3 other good schools to pick from, so i am sure it will turn out ok.</p>
<p>*Ignore the rejection, or just say it’s okay and that there are still other choices. Just don’t be like my parents.</p>
<p>When I was rejected at all the ivies I applied to (I did four), my parents kept rubbing it in my face, even after I told them to let it go. They were like “you shouldn’t have graduated early”, “you must have sucked at the interviews”, “you should have let us seen your essay”, and “if you stayed one more year, you would have gotten in” right until I went to college.</p>
<p>I mean, I got into some damn good colleges, and got a lot of money from my safeties. And I was offered GT at Cornell. I didn’t need their yabbering, especially when Harvard and Yale were their choices and when they didn’t help me with the application process. *</p>
<p>Ok…no offense to you, because you sound like a child anyone would be proud of. But, these parents get the “Insensitivity Award of the CENTURY” award. Seriously. As a parent, this distresses me. I am SO SORRY that you had to endure this. Can I spank them across the internet?</p>
<p>S got WL’d from 3/4 of the competitive schools he applied to including his first choice which he put the most energy into applying to. He took the bad news like a champ. The school he got into was one he had not visited or fallen in love with as he had with his first choice. When we visited following the acceptance he felt like it was a great fit and is really happy where he is. In a way this saved us from having to make any difficult choices about where to go. The only thing we agonized over was the price. From the get go there was a dollar limit on what we could afford and fortunately the financial aid came through to meet our budget. </p>
<p>The point is that often there is a wonderful experience ahead even if it isn’t the one that the student initially visualized. I love the theater and poker analogies. I was not nearly as creative. From the get go I told my son that he absolutely had the credentials to get into all of the schools he applied to. I also told him that since his record didn’t show anything so over the top amazing (like curing cancer or 2400 SAT’s while being president of 3 clubs) he was not a shoo in at any of the highly competitve schools and it just came down to how the folks in admissions were struck by his application since there are so many qualified students. I don’t think he ever looked back or would have even if he went to one of his safeties.</p>